The stories and strategies detailed here, all used to combat the profound physical, emotional, and social challenges faced by those in the crosshairs of the AIDS epidemic, provide a gateway for understanding how individuals cope with chronic and life-threatening diseases. Here the author takes readers on a journey of first-hand data collection (the interviews themselves), the popular culture representations of these phenomena, and his own experiences as one of the men of the AIDS generation.

Strub takes readers through his own diagnosis and inside ACT UP, the organization that transformed a stigmatized cause into one of the defining political movements of our time. From the New York of Studio 54 and Andy Warhol's Factory to the intersection of politics and burgeoning LGBT and AIDS movements, Strub's story is a vivid portrait of a tumultuous era.

A "memorial to those lost to AIDS and to two of the great unsung heroes of the early years of the epidemic. Callen, a white gay Midwesterner who moved to New York, became a leading figure in the movement to increase awareness of AIDS in the face of willful neglect; Hemphill, an African American gay man, contributed to the black gay and lesbian flowering in Washington, D.C., with poetry of searing intensity and introspection."

Millions of Africans die each year from infectious diseases, such as AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; from poor nutrition or lack of clean drinking water; or from diseases like measles and polio that have been conquered in developed countries through the use of vaccines. This book explores the current health crisis in Africa, explaining the scope of the problems that the continent faces. It also describes efforts by humanitarian organizations and by African governments to train health-care professionals.